Reading Vincenzo Latronico’s novel Perfection I was struck by the narrator’s early summary of his protagonists’ work, Latronico writing that ‘what (Anna and Tom) created were differences’. (1) The phrase gave me pause for thought, as it would when I reflected on the number of times that I ask people ‘and what difference would that make?’, and when they answer asking again ‘and what difference would THAT make?’. ‘Difference’ is not just at the heart of our work – it is our work. There is no point to what we do if it does not make a difference. But is that any sort of difference? Will any sort of difference do? What is a difference that makes a difference and who decides? When I was learning systemic therapy back in the 1980’s professionals thought that they could decide. They applied ideas derived from Ashby’s ‘Design for a Brain’ (1952) and talked about first and second order change. We find these ideas informing the thinking of Watzlawick, Weakland and Fisch (1974) in their hugely influential text ‘Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution’ where they write ‘there are two different types of change: one that occurs within a given system which itself remains unchanged, and one whose occurrence changes the system itself’ (p 10). First -order change was of course defined as the former and second-order change the latter. Simon, Stierlin and Wynne (1985) framed the distinction in the following terms ‘the goals of therapy determine largely in advance which type of change is being consciously or unconsciously sought. The attempt to establish a status quo ante (the condition that existed in the family before the appearance of the symptoms) implies a mere first- order change; this approach accords with the traditional medical view of therapy. If, however, one aims for new patterns of behaviour, new family structures, and the development of improved problem- solving abilities, then one is aiming for second- order change’ (p 35). The phrase ‘mere first - order change’ indicates clearly enough the authors’ evaluation of these changes that they define as ‘first – order’ and note as well the slightly sneaky introduction of ‘consciously or unconsciously’. So here we have the professional in charge of defining what sort of difference is more than ‘mere’!
Some years ago, I was meeting someone new for a first session. In those days I used to ask clients whether they had any questions they wanted to ask me before we got going ‘just to put your mind at rest either about me, my background, qualifications, experience how I work, about BRIEF, anything really’. The client responded by saying ‘no’, that she knew all about therapy and felt familiar with it having had, and I can’t remember whether she said 8 or 18 years of individual psychotherapy. Since I can’t remember let’s assume that she said ‘8 years of psychotherapy’. I remember a sinking feeling coming over me at that moment. She had seen someone for 8 years and she is coming to see me for 3 or 4 or 5 (typically) sessions of Solution Focused Brief Therapy. My panic meant that I decided to ignore her answer, (never a good idea) and to tell her about the approach anyway, how it worked and how many sessions we typically saw people for and how it wasn’t normally weekly and so on. The client was very patient with me and when I asked her, well sort of asked, ‘you do realise that it is going to be very different’ she responded by saying of course she realised, that was why she had come to see me. Her long-term therapy had been the single most interesting and enriching experience of her life and she would not have foregone it for anything. She was both warm towards, and appreciative of, her therapist. However, she explained that when she initially went for therapy there were some things that were bothering her – and they still were – and she thought that some SFBT could help her to sort them out. So clearly individual psychotherapy for her had made a difference – but had it made the difference that she wanted. Is there a distinction to be made here between ‘a’ difference and ‘the’ difference?
Thinking about this possible distinction between ‘a’ and ‘the’ difference reminded me of a confirmatory-type of question that Steve de Shazer used to ask - something on the lines of ‘and if you saw that happening that would be evidence of change – that would tell you that change was happening for sure?’ and this reminded me of another first meeting of mine.
A best hopes happening morning, which she has framed as a ‘smiley sunshine happiness morning’, is being described by Elizabeth:
Therapist: What would they notice was different about you while you were doing breakfast, while you were doing their breakfast
Client: Don’t know – I don’t know
Therapist: Would you eat something, would you have something for breakfast on a smiley sunshine, butterfly sort of day – happiness sort of day
Client: Dunno – no – coffee
Therapist: Ok so you’d have a coffee and as you were having your coffee – what would tell you that today’s coffee is a little different – what would you be noticing as you were sitting down drinking your coffee
Client: on a good sunshiny day it would be outside in the garden – looking at my garden - out in my garden with my animals and it wouldn't taste so bitter - it tastes so bitter at the moment - coffee it tastes so bitter
Therapist: So something other than that bitterness would be coming into it . . . .
And as you’re looking at the animals what are you thinking on a sunshiny, smiley butterfly day:
Client: it's lovely to be here and I'm lucky to have this - such a lovely sunshiny day
Therapist: It's lovely to be here and I’m lucky to be here – and would that be a little bit different from the thoughts you've been having recently
Client: yes a lot different from the thoughts I've been having recently
Therapist: so that would show you for sure that something has changed if you began to think this is lovely and I am lucky to have this – that would be a change and that would be . . . a welcome change.
So what is happening here? Is this an example of somehow laying down some of the possible differences that could be ‘the’ difference rather than ‘a’ difference?
Two more thoughts that came to me this week relating to this theme. During the course of the week I saw one client for a third session and we agreed that this might be enough, and thus not to fix another time right now, and then a client for a first session where we agreed the same thing. There had been a lot of pre-session change. What seemed clear to me in both situations was that neither client needed to resolve everything, to achieve their ‘best hopes’, in order to stop, to finish. People typically come to see us when they feel ‘stuck’, often having struggled with something for a while, and we work with them until they say to themselves ‘I can find my way forward again’. In this sense it may be that in follow-up sessions the most important scale might be ‘0 to 10 with 10 standing for you’re on track there is no need to make another time ,at the moment, and 0 standing for the way things were when you made your first appointment with BRIEF’.
In SFBT there is no concept of ‘professionally-evaluated’ difference, only the client can determine the significance of a difference, we co-construct a series of ‘the’ differences and typically work with people until they are ‘on track’. All these thoughts were set off by just one short phrase at the beginning of Latronico’s novel.
(1) I have been reading two of the books on the Booker International Longlist, Perfection by Latronico and Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix. Both really interesting, excellent reads.
Ashby, W. R. (1952) Design for a Brain. London: Chapman & Hall.
Latronico, V. (2025) Perfection (translated into English by Sophie Hughes) London: Fitzcarraldo.
Simon, F.B., Stierlin, H., Wynne, L.V. (1985) The Language of Family Therapy: A Systemic Vocabulary and Sourcebook. New York: Family Process.
Watzlawick,P., Weakland,J., and Fisch, R. (1974) Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution. New York: Norton.
Evan George
London.
04 May 2025
